This invention relates to interactive television program guide systems, and more particularly, to parental control techniques for use in interactive television program guide systems.
Cable, satellite, and broadcast television systems provide viewers with a large number of television channels. Viewers have traditionally consulted printed television program schedules to determine the programs being broadcast at a particular time. More recently, interactive electronic television program guides have been developed that allow television program information to be displayed on a viewer's television.
Interactive program guides are typically implemented on set-top boxes. Such program guides allow users to view television program listings in different display formats. For example, a user may instruct the program guide to display a grid of program listings organized in a channel-ordered or a time-ordered list. Users may also search and sort program listings by theme (e.g., movies, sports, etc.) or by title (i.e., alphabetically). A user may obtain additional information for a program by placing a highlight region on a desired program listing and pressing an “info” key. The user may purchase a pay program from the program guide or may set a reminder for a future program by placing the highlight region on a program listing and pressing an “OK” key. Some systems allow the user to select a program for recording by placing the highlight region on a program listing and pressing a “record” key.
Some known interactive program guides offer a parental control feature. Using this feature, access to programming may be parentally controlled based on certain program characteristics, such as program titles, ratings, times, or channels. For example, a program guide may block certain programming based on program characteristics that have been selected by a user (e.g., a parent). In such systems, blocked programming may be unblocked by entering a parental control code.
Purchase control is offered in some interactive program guides. When a user attempts to make a purchase through the interactive program guide, such as an impulse pay-per-view purchase, the interactive program guide may ask the user for a purchase code, and may not allow the purchase to be completed unless the purchase code is entered.
In such systems, parents are not able to specify different levels of control for children at different levels of maturity or responsibility. This and other inadequacies make prior techniques unsuitable for many users.